La loi des tropiques

Constance Bennett in the 1940s. Her role is an Ann Sheridan-type role. And she looks like part-Benett, part-Jane Wyman, and a good part Lucille Ball. (The penciled-in brows, the full red lips ...) This could not be called a good movie. It holds its own, though. Jeffrey Lynn is good, as he always was. The other female lead, Mona Maris, is very alluring and a good actress.

The plot is silly as can be.

In "What Price Hollywood?" Bennett sang in French. She wove in and out of seats at a cabaret much in the style of Marlene Deitrich in "morocco." In "City Across The Bay," her sister Joan sings a racy song that puts one in mind of Carmen Miranda. Here Bennett sings a song that is partly in Spanish. (The story takes place in South or Central America.) Everyone gives it his or her best. Often that isn't much but it's a hard movie to dislike.

Deep, deep, miserably deep "B". However, Bennett is delightful, as always, and makes the picture worth watching. Also, if you've ever had the urge to beat the crap out of Peter Gunn, there's an OK fight scene that Craig Stevens gets the worst of, and the chick who plays Regis Toomey's wife is a 40's hottie.

Only a few years earlier, Warner Brothers made "Oil for the Lamps in China"...and remade it as "Law of the Tropics". Such things were very common for the studio...and they even sometimes made remakes only a couple years later! I loved the first film...what about this remake?

The plots are very, very similar. The only main difference I saw is that the remake was set in South America, not China as well as the film being a little less of an indictment about corporate greed and indifference.

Instead of top actors, however, in the remake they used second-tier ones. Constance Bennett, once a bit star, had a career tailspin...probably, sadly, due to her age. Jeffery Lynn was never a top star but a competent B-movie actor. Despite this, they both did a very nice job and the film is STILL good....just not quite as good as the first one.

Jeffrey Lynn works on a rubber plantation. He's on a week's holiday in town to get married with his girl from the States. Instead he gets a 'Dear John' letter. Instead he marries Constance Bennett in a marriage of convenience. They head back upriver, where they fall in love with each other. What he doesn't know is that she's wanted for murder back home.

It's a satisfactory B version of OIL FOR THE LAMPS OF CHINA, eked out with some good performances like Hobart Bosworth as the manager, an amusing turn by Frank Puglia, and Thomas E. Jackson as, of course, a detective. The ending is abrupt, but at 75 minutes, that's an epic length for a Bryan For production.

Jim Conway (Jeffrey Lynn) works on a rubber plantation in the Amazon. He has come up with a new way to process rubber. He's eager to marry his girl Laura and bring her back to the jungle. Instead, he receives a Dear John telegram. He meets singer Joan Madison (Constance Bennett), and tells her his sad story. She is being chased by an unsavory character and she jumps on board his boat. To avoid embarrassment, she pretends to be Laura after marrying him. Secretly, she needs to hide under the assumed name. They get married by the captain and agree to a divorce in three months. Jim is a loyal company man but the company isn't loyal to its men.

This is loosely based on the 1935 movie, Oil for the Lamps of China. This is a B-movie. It's a bit of a jumbo. The acting is fine for a lesser movie. The movie needs something but I'm not sure what. The fist fight is fun but the movie doesn't really elevates.